Sam Altman walked into Bernie Sanders’ Senate office in early June 2026 and, for about an hour, the two men discussed something that would have sounded like fan fiction a year ago: giving the American public an ownership stake in the country’s most valuable AI companies.
The meeting happened at Altman’s request. The OpenAI CEO signaled his willingness to collaborate with Sanders on promoting public equity in AI firms.
What Sanders is actually proposing
On June 1, 2026, Sanders introduced the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. The bill’s core mechanism is a one-time transfer of 50% equity from the country’s leading AI companies into a federally managed sovereign wealth fund.
The companies named in the proposal include OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI.
